Mysterious monster sighted in county

By Raymond Castile

Illustrator Hal D. Crawford drew this image for the 1970 book "The Aliens"
by Crawford, Hayden Hewes and Kietha Hewes. It depicts a creature
associated with 1950s UFO landings. Momo eyewitnesses in Louisiana, Mo.,
claimed the illustration looked almost exactly like the creature they saw
during the summer of 1972.Used with permission.

Does a real-life monster roam the Missouri wilderness?

Witnesses claim to have seen a huge, hairy, hulking creature stalking the
woods and lonely country roads. The creature is similar to the well-known
Bigfoot of the Pacific Northwest, only more otherworldly. It has glowing
orange eyes, a pumpkin-shaped head, three-fingered hands and leaves three-toed
footprints. Unlike the shy Bigfoot, this aggressive creature is known to
kill animals and antagonize humans.

Its name is Momo  the Missouri Monster.

Momo sightings have been reported throughout Missouri, even in St. Charles
County. But the most famous sightings occurred in Louisiana, Mo., a town
of fewer than 4,000 people. Located in Pike County, Louisiana lies 75 miles
northwest of St. Charles County.

Bigfoot-like creatures have been reported in the Louisiana area since the
1940s, but it was not until the early 1970s that Momo attracted serious interest.

Bigfoot researcher Loren Coleman describes the now-legendary Momo scare in
his book, "Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America."

According to Coleman, the Momo saga began in July, 1971. Joan Mills and Mary
Ryan were driving along Highway 79, north of Louisiana, when they allegedly
saw a hairy creature that made disturbing gurgling noises. The women described
the thing as "half ape and half man."

The most notorious sighting took place one year later. On the afternoon of
July 11, 1972, 8-year-old Terry Harrison and his 5-year-old brother, Wally,
were playing in their backyard at the foot of Marzolf Hill on the outskirts
of Louisiana. Their older sister, Doris, was inside the house. Doris heard
her brothers scream. She looked out the bathroom window and saw a black,
hairy manlike creature, standing by a tree.

The thing appeared to be six or seven feet tall. Its head sat directly atop
its shoulders, with no visible neck. The face was likewise invisible, completely
covered by a mass of hair.

The youths reported a chilling detail  the creature, streaked with
blood, carried a dead dog under its arm.

A local farmer reported his dog had disappeared. A neighbor reported hearing
terrible growling sounds that afternoon.

Edgar Harrison, the children's father, also heard loud growls the evening
of July 14. He and several other people smelled a strong, unpleasant odor
as they investigated the area around Marzolf Hill. Investigators later reported
smelling a similar stench, like rotting flesh.

On July 21 Momo revealed itself to Ellis Minor outside his home on River
Road. It was around 10 p.m. when Minor heard his dogs barking. He grabbed
a flashlight and stepped outside, expecting to see an intruding dog.

Instead, he saw a 6-foot-tall monster standing in his yard. The black, hairy
creature turned and ran.

According to a July 23, 1972 story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, police
sealed off a 200-acre wooded area while a team of 25 hunters searched for
the creature, which many believed to be a black bear. Police received reports
of a creature crossing the highway with a dog or sheep in its mouth. Another
witness told police that the creature lifted the back of his automobile.

"What impressed me was the willingness of people to talk to us. Normally
people are reluctant to talk about these things," said Hewes, 61. "This was
not just one person spitting in a can, saying `yes sir, I saw it right over
there.' These were good quality people who were enthusiastic about what was
going on."

Hewes said he was impressed with the witnesses' sincerity.

"These people didn't want to sell something. They didn't want publicity.
They just wanted to share their stories. I never got any inkling that there
was a hoax."

A sketch of the creature reported by Doris and Terry Harrison on July
11, 1972, in Louisiana, Mo.Courtesy of MUFON.

The Momo scare lasted only two weeks, but it triggered a media frenzy. Television
and newspaper journalists from across the nation descended on the small town.

"I did close to 75 television and newspaper interviews," Hewes said. "They
flew me to Chicago to do some television there. There were people around
us shooting documentaries. We haven't had a case that well-documented since."

Sasquatch Investigations of Mid America is an offshoot of the International
UFO Bureau, an organization Hewes founded in 1957.

"We researched Bigfoot sightings in eight states, mainly to see if there
was any connection with UFO sightings," he said. "With Momo, we found there
was no correlation whatsoever with UFOs."

Hewes said his investigations suggest there are families of nocturnal Bigfoot
creatures that continuously migrate across the nation from the Pacific Northwest
to the southeast.

"The path begins around Oregon and Washington state," he said. "It crosses
Oklahoma around the first week of September, then finishes in Florida."

When he is not conducting paranormal investigations, Hewes runs a talent
agency and works in warehouse distribution in Oklahoma City. Hewes has a
degree in aeronautical and space engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

While Hewes and other researchers concentrated on Louisiana, one team of
investigators focused on sightings in the St. Charles County vicinity.

John Schuessler was living in O'Fallon during the Momo scare. Schuessler
worked for McDonnell Douglas as a group engineer for life support systems
on the Sky Lab space station, then later as director of flight operations
for the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

In 1969, Schuessler helped establish the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), an
international collective of UFO researchers. The 71-year-old Schuessler still
directs the organization from its headquarters in Colorado.

The Momo scare coincided with a rash of UFO sightings, including reports
near his home in O'Fallon. The possible UFO connection intrigued Schuessler,
so he joined the Momo investigation. Schuessler found no connection between
Momo and UFO activity, but he did investigate two incidents that corroborated
the presence of Bigfoot creatures in the region.

On June 30, 1972, a month before the Harrison sighting in Louisiana, two
young men from Troy were fishing on a secluded bank of the Cuivre River near
Cuivre River State Park in Lincoln County. The fishermen, named Vaughn and
Tim, stood atop a high bank overlooking an unusually low bank on the river's
opposite side.

According to Schuessler, Vaughn noticed a splash and looked up.

"They said they saw something wading across the river  a big, hairy
thing. They didn't know what it was," Schuessler said. "Vaughn said, `Hey
Tim, look at that silly hippie wading across the river.' Then they realized
it was not a hippie."

The men described the creature as standing taller than a normal man and hairy
all over, Schuessler said. Like the Louisiana creature, the Troy monster's
hair completely covered its face. Its head looked like a dome resting on
its shoulders.

Tim scrambled up a hillside while Vaughn held his ground. The creature continued
its deliberate march toward him. Vaughn finally panicked and ran. The men
found a conservation officer and returned to the scene.

"All they found were fresh, three-toed footprints where the creature came
out of the water," Schuessler said.

Schuessler inspected the area the next day and found the prints.

"They were large prints, but I couldn't tell what made them," he said. "We
looked for hair, but found nothing but tracks."

Schuessler said Vaughn and Tim seemed honest and genuinely frightened. Schuessler
also interviewed the conservation officer.

"He said he'd gotten a lot of weird reports out of the park, but he didn't
pay attention to them. I think he wanted to stay at arm's length from it
all," he said.

An illustration depicting the Troy creature wading across the Cuivre
River. Courtesy of MUFON.

Another Momo sighting took place July 24 near O'Fallon, just after the final
Louisiana sighting. Two teenage girls reported seeing a hairy creature at
sunset walking along the edge of a wooded area. The O'Fallon incident is
mentioned in "The Bigfoot Casebook" by Janet and Colin Bord, but Schuessler
does not remember the details.

"It was not as vivid as the Troy sighting," he said.

Momo must have enjoyed his sojourn in St. Charles County, because the creature
apparently passed through town again four years later.

The "Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization" Web site lists Momo sightings
in 29 Missouri counties, including a 1976 report from St. Charles County.
According to the report, two people were in a boat on the Missouri River
near Highway 40-61 when they saw what appeared to be a 6-to-7-foot tall creature
covered in dark brown hair. The creature was drinking from the river when
it saw the boat, stood up and ran into the trees.

Another local story is posted on the "Bigfoot Encounters" Web site. Mark
Richardson, of Modesto, Calif., claims to have seen the creature in 1979
when he was living in St. Peters.

According to Richardson, he and a friend were on a railroad bridge over Dardenne
Creek one night. Richardson saw shadows moving and assumed it was his friend.

To his shock, he discovered it was an 8-to-9-foot-tall creature with long,
matted brown hair covering its body and face. Its shoulders were five feet
wide. Its three-fingered hands hung below its knees.

The creature smelled like rotting hair and screamed like a panther. Richardson
claims it lifted the railroad timbers and tried to grab his friend.

The two escaped and ran home.

Richardson claims he knows other people who saw the St. Peters creature.
He could not be reached for comment.

So is Momo real? Investigators like Schuessler say the sincere testimony
of eyewitnesses cannot be dismissed.